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Single Idea 18592

[filed under theme 18. Thought / D. Concepts / 2. Origin of Concepts / c. Nativist concepts ]

Full Idea

Several concepts, such as OBJECT or AGENT, may be innate.

Gist of Idea

The concepts OBJECT or AGENT may be innate

Source

Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.1.4)

Book Ref

Machery,Edouard: 'Doing Without Concepts' [OUP 2009], p.82

A Reaction

It is one thing to say that we respond to objects and agents, and another to say that we have those 'concepts'. Presumably birds, and even bees, have to relate to similar features. Add PROCESS?

The 15 ideas with the same theme [concepts as innate or native ingredients of minds]:

3631 A blind man may still contain the idea of colour [Descartes]
2273 The ideas of God and of my self are innate in me [Descartes]
2285 I can think of innumerable shapes I have never experienced [Descartes]
2286 The idea of a supremely perfect being is within me, like the basic concepts of mathematics [Descartes]
2600 The mind's innate ideas are part of its capacity for thought [Descartes]
2601 Qualia must be innate, because physical motions do not contain them [Descartes]
12471 Innate ideas are nothing, if they are in the mind but we are unaware of them [Locke]
8100 Where does the bird's idea of a nest come from? [Joubert]
6649 Chomsky now says concepts are basically innate, as well as syntax [Chomsky, by Lowe]
6650 Fodor is now less keen on the innateness of concepts [Fodor, by Lowe]
2492 Experience can't explain itself; the concepts needed must originate outside experience [Fodor]
11143 If concept-learning is hypothesis-testing, that needs innate concepts to get started [Fodor, by Margolis/Laurence]
12662 We have an innate capacity to form a concept, once we have grasped the stereotype [Fodor]
4997 It seems unlikely that most concepts are innate, if a theory must be understood to grasp them [Kirk,R]
18592 The concepts OBJECT or AGENT may be innate [Machery]